


A Parasite in Love

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Consent Issues, F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love Potion/Spell, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, consent issues due to love potions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tried to be better, after what happened at Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Parasite in Love

She tried to be better, after what happened at Hogwarts.

Hogwarts was a wonderful place, somewhere good and forgiving and so unlike the real world. After her love potion had fallen into the wrong hands and caused a boy to almost die, no one had reprimanded her. It was likely that no one had known to do so. The only people involved, and knew the story beyond the sparse details the rumor mill came up with, were Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, and Professor Slughorn. Ron Weasley had just wanted to forget everything, and hadn't looked at her since that day. He hadn't told his parents, who no doubt would've thrown around words of consent and bewitched and illegal. Harry Potter didn't know wizarding law. He was probably used to people trying to drug him, either way. And Slughorn, as a Slytherin, was much more relaxed about pesky little issues like a reversible, harmless love potion.

She had gotten off scot free, though in her nightmares, she was locked in prison for her crime.

(Had Ron Weasley been a moneyed pureblood, one with standing and powerful parents, she'd be in Azkaban. Had he been a Slytherin, she'd be dead. She couldn't make herself forget it all.)

It had all just been a stupid whim. She hadn't been poor, or helpless, or in terrible need of a boyfriend. She couldn't even say she'd been in love with Harry Potter. She found him handsome, famous, and rich, but her feelings didn't stretch past attraction. It had just been a spur of the moment decision, a bit of boredom, a thought of what if. She could've been locked up for a decade had Ron Weasley been harmed.

She was just a stupid girl, and she'd realized it, too. She'd put away her potions kit, made herself stop trying to come up with improvements to already existing love potions, and concentrated on not stepping out of line.

She dated a pretty blonde-haired witch, one so different from herself that it was hard to imagine their relationship working at all. Astoria Greengrass was sweet, and lovely, and too nice for her own good. She made Romilda forget the dark parts of her heart for a while, and that was worth more than Romilda could ever put in words.

Despite knowing it would end badly, knowing she couldn't love someone as purely as Astoria needed to be loved, Romilda fell in love. She loved Astoria like a treasure beyond compare, like a lovely sunset. She tried to protect her, to never let her know just how rotten people could be. She didn't let herself think about how easy it would be to slip something into her drink, to test a few potions she'd found in old dark books.

(At the same time, she dated a boy one year her junior, just because she could. Just because there were some things she couldn't do to Astoria, some things she couldn't do to someone she loved. It was the best of both worlds, really.)

She and Astoria only broke up around graduation. They were going to different places, meeting different people, studying different things. It was logical that they'd split up. It was even a mutual break-up, according to Astoria.

(To Romilda, it was something quite different, but she didn't voice it aloud.)

They entered the real world with buckets of hopes and dreams. Post-war Britain was a happy place, despite the scars the war caused. Astoria, able to lean on her parents' influence and money, flourished at a French magical college.

Romilda found it much harder to survive. Her parents had been supporters of the dark, and had fought on the wrong side of the Final Battle. Both had died, leaving their money to their oldest son, who didn't care much about his youngest sister. Romlida was the youngest of seven, and their parents' money only stretched so far. Work was hard to find, and the only job available for Romilda, an apothecary's assistant, only paid enough to get by.

She yearned for the comfort of Hogwarts, for place to be happy, for an account at Gringotts that held more than just dust.

So instead of keeping her vow of becoming a better person, Romilda made sure she'd never get caught. She created her own array of love potions, became adept at brewing the polyjuice potion, and marveled at the many glamours available to her. She came to Paris armed with a full arsenal of mixtures, and slipped Astoria a drop of a love potion of her own design, just enough to be noticed. Just enough for Astoria to pay attention to her, to think this pretty stranger was someone she needed to get to know.

And months later, when Astoria made her decision a second time, Romilda did things differently.

"Forgive me," Astoria said. "I just… This feels wrong. Like there's something missing."

And Romilda smiled, coated her lips with a balm of her own making, and asked for one last kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
